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FIRE & FROSTYara's Winter Festival “Fire” & “Frost” by Olena Jennings Director: Virlana Tkacz Dec 8 & 9, 2017 RESPONSES & PRESS On December 8, 2017 I attended Yara Arts Group’s winter festival event “Fire & Frost” at the Ukrainian Museum in the East Village. It was a celebration not only of the written word, but of dance and song as well, utilizing light and video to effectively create mood. About Ukraine, it was more broadly about travel. Art has always had the ability to transport the viewer to another place, and that is exactly what happened. The event began with poets. Olena Jennings read her poems “Fire” and “Frost,” Maria Rewakowicz read her “Winter Poems” and Bob Holman performed his poems from his collection of Matisse-inspired ekphrasis poems called “Cutouts.” “There’s nothing there yet” by Serhiy Zhadan, translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps and a response to “There’s nothing there yet” was written and read by Wanda Phipps and accompanied by Lindsey Wilson on guitar. Olena Jennings’ poems were recited by candlelight in the darkened performance space; the somber and serious mood matched the content of the poems. On the other hand Bob Holman’s work, although serious, was peppered with humorous lines emphasized by his reading. Also featured were films by Andrea Odezynska, photography of the city of Donetsk by Margaret Morton before the war and Evgeniy Maloletka more recently. Other performances featured dancer Katja Kolcio, accompanied by Julian Kytasty on “bandura,” music written and performed by Lindsey Wilson and excerpts from “The Female Role Model Project,” facilitated by Tjasa Ferme and Meggan Dodd. Marina Celander and Julian introduced a new work by Yara Arts Group. One thing that always attracted me to performance is the use of language or movement as a way of getting a point across. I think that what’s really appealing about a poetry reading is the content itself, of course, but also hearing the poems being read our loud by the author. The author knows the intonation and rhythm of the poem far better than anyone else, and there’s a difference between how you think it sounds and how the author knows it sounds.
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Yara Arts Group
306 East 11th St., #3B
New York, NY 10003
USA
Phone: 212-475-6474
Email: yara@prodigy.net
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